Hello my fellow bloggers! Summer has been so nice… I think every profession should offer Summers off 🙂 My school has a set intervention time, Tiger Time, that is daily for 30 minutes. The students are divided by their individual reading/phonics needs. This year we had 4 groups/4 Teachers {1 group using Fundations, 2 groups using Road to Reading, and the higher level students were in an advance classroom setting. The majority of the students transfer in and out of the classrooms as their needs change throughout the year.
Below I will explain each of these programs- Fundations and Road to Reading. I will also discuss Road to the Code- which I used at the beginning of the school year before the students switched classrooms for Tiger Time.
Road to Reading
I LOVE Road to Reading. If you have never heard of it oh my you are in for a treat! Road to Reading is designed as a preventive and remedial reading program. My favorite thing about it is that it has a very strict routine. Yes yes I completely understand those that don’t like that, but it’s really a nice routine to have. The kids know exactly what you are doing each day and what is expected of them. This allows for a lot of learning to get done in a very short time! Road to Reading instills the Five-Step Plan that the teacher/students follow every day. I will detail below the 5 steps and will also include awesome Youtube videos I found for each step {very nice lady to record herself- not something I volunteer for!}
Road to Reading 5 Step Plan:
1. Review Sound Cards {basically the teacher holds up each letter and the student replies… “a /a/ apple, p /p/ pizza}
2. Teach/Review decoding Skills {teacher says a word and the student manipulates the letters to form the word on a magnetic board- I displayed the words on the Smartboard after the students formed the word so they can self-check}
3. Review phonetically regular words (PRWs) {the teacher holds up cards of words that the students have built in step 2}
4. Read orally in context {we used A-Z readers and the decodable readers that go along with our Reading series, Journeys}
5. Dictation {students write the words they built in Step 2 and orally named in Step 3. **note the freebie below for this step**
WOW! That’s a mouthful I know! Hopefully you have either had experience with the program before or maybe these following videos will display a better understanding! This teacher is doing a one-on-one session, but I used the program whole group with about 10-12 students.
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4:
Step 5:
Here is the FREEBIE that goes along with the Road to Reading program. It is the dictation paper/journal that we used. Some use blank paper, but my teaching buddy, Ashley Klein, and I liked the idea of having a template to promote neat and quality work!
Now on to the next program- Fundations!
My teaching team uses several factors to decide where to place our students into their intervention groups- one is the AIMSWEB diagnostic tool. The students that scored lower in letter names and/or letter sounds were placed into our Fundations intervention group. Fundations can be one-on-one, small group, or whole group. Fundations puts an emphasis on letter and the handwriting of the letters. They use guided lined paper for assistance {sky line, plane line, grass line, and worm line}. Fundations also works with phonological awareness, sound mastery, phonics, vocabulary, sight word recognition, fluency, comprehension, and written comprehension -yes that’s just about everything!!
This program is fabulous especially those that are still struggling! There is a consistent routine and not to mention a super cute friend- Echo the Owl!! I used Fundations during whole group settings as a filler for my Letter & Word Work time. As I mentioned above Fundations using a guided lined system…Here is a student & teacher copy.
Road to the Code
Road to the Code is the step before Road to Reading. I use this program at the beginning of the year during my small group time as well as intervention group! Road to the Code is a phonological awareness program {whole other blog post to come}. Phonological awareness is really strictly hearing the sounds in words, letters, rhymes, etc. Road to the Code lessons follow a Say-It-and-Move-It approach {see freebie below}. The teacher will give each student a Say-it-Move-it board and the necessary amount of manipulatives like counting tiles. The teacher will start with single sounds like /a/, /s/, /t/. The tile starts at the line and when the teacher says the sound /a/ the child repeats the sound and slides it up into the box {again see freebie below for example}. The program is really great about allowing the teacher to go at his/her own pace. If the kiddos get it, move on. If you are seeing difficulty in understanding, slow down.
I print these on card stock and laminate for repeated use!
I hope you were able to find something of great use here today! Please note I am no way affiliated with any of these programs. I have used all of them in my classroom and know of their great success!! If you have used any of these programs please leave me a comment and tell me what ya think! If you have any questions please also give me a shout! Have a fabulous week!
My upcoming posts:
What’s in my guided-reading groups
Whole Brain Teaching
Phonological Awareness-what makes it different from Phonics
Singapore math techniques
and more……
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Wow it is great to find someone else who uses Fundations. 🙂 We use it differently in that every child uses Fundations each day. It can get pretty tiresome and boring for some of my advanced kiddos. Great post!
Sugar and Spice
I really like the Road to Reading examples! I have never heard of this program before. We have Open Court in our district (for over 10 yrs I think) and it is very prescriptive, but not very predictable or consistent. It uses a spiral review approach, but you never know what skill we'll be practicing next. Sometimes it goes from one skill to another in a blink of an eye, and the lower kids get so lost! (For example, the lesson I taught today had rhyming, then beginning sound isolation, then medial sound substitution, and a new beginning sound card introduced! Yowsers! I teach ELL's and I have to really simplify it so it doesn't confuse them!
I like how this program goes through the steps consistently each day. How do you do whole group with step 2 (making the words)? Do you make individual sound boards (it looks like it is something homemade??) or do you do it on a large pocket chart with all students at once?
Hi there and thanks for the comment! In step 2 building the words each student has a white magnetic board and the magnetic letters they need for the day are on the top of the board. I will say the word and they will pull down the letters to make the word. I place the letters on the boards the day ahead, I have heard that some teachers will have the students pull out the letters they will need, we just don't have time for that during Intervention.
Tara
My system uses Fundations also. We use in whole group, small group and in our intervention programs. We think its great for the repetition of it. We do tend to get bored after the meat of the book is complete though.
Kari from TN
I used Fundations for the first time this year! We used it in the resource room setting this year, but next year they are using it in the general ed. classrooms as well. It's nice to find someone who uses it as well!
Ashley
The Resource Room Teacher
Thanks for sharing! I use fundations and was given Road to the Code midyear without any instruction on how to use it. Thank you for your post and freebies! I'm looking forward to your guided reading and whole brain teaching 🙂
Hello everyone. At our school we use Road to the Code, Fundations, and Road to Reading. Road to the Code is the most remedial RTI. It has to do with sounds(phonemes). When you think about it we first learn sound as a child. It works! Then we can move them to Fundations and then Road to Reading. Our school also uses GATE and Read Naturally. We have had success with all of these intervention.
Any thoughts on Accelerated Reader?
How did you make the word board where the child has the consonants at the top, vowels in the middle, and creates the word on the last line? I would appreciate if you could let me know how you made it. Thanks!
Amy,
Those were videos I was sharing. In my classroom we use whiteboards and magnetic letters for Road to Reading! Thanks,
Tara
I love the videos to see them step by step. We use Fundations and Road to the Code. We just started using LLI from Fontas and Pinnell this year. Very explicit.